


And what are we running towards, if not each other?

by not_here_leave_a_message



Category: Atypical (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Casey's avoiding Izzie and she's had enough., F/F, One Shot, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 15:34:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21376432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_here_leave_a_message/pseuds/not_here_leave_a_message
Summary: "Izzie changed course, turning on the balls of her feet and starting, again at a jog, toward an answer.  Because Izzie was a go-getter.  Izzie didn’t run away from things.  She ran toward them."Or: A peak inside Izzie's head while Casey's avoiding her, up until she decides to confront Casey herself.  Just an introspective fic, stops before the actual confrontation on the track/all that comes after that, so just be aware of that!
Relationships: Casey Gardner/Izzie
Comments: 12
Kudos: 154





	And what are we running towards, if not each other?

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! In a fun twist of fic fate, this one is hot off the presses. I banged this baby out like a week ago and I've reread it twice for errors and now I just want to sent it out into the world, so I hope you all can enjoy it. Hopefully errors are minimal but it is unbetad so just keep that in mind...
> 
> I put the warning in the description but just a heads up that this is an introspective fic, a look into what might have been going on in Izzie's mind and what finally propelled her to confront Casey (if you've read any of my fics you might well be aware that I love character studies), so if you've come for anything having to do with the kiss, apologies. If you're sticking around anyway, I hope you like it! :)

Izzie was a go-getter. 

It was her worst quality. 

Actually, that wasn’t true. 

Izzie was a go-getter. That was simultaneously her worst and her best quality. It was why she was at Clatyon. She heard about the scholarship her freshman year and she worked her ass off, first to get it, and then to maintain it. She was a tunnel-vision go-getter: find a thing, a goal, and hit it. Get it. No matter the cost, it would be worth it. It had to be worth it. 

Her singular focus made her a great runner and an even better competitor. It gave her clarity. Purpose. Goals got her through the bad days. Running, schoolwork, her sibling’s happiness. Her own happiness, at that. 

She had drive, and confidence, and she had them in spades and that made her a go-getter. 

Sometimes it made her impatient, or mean-spirited, or selfish. All things her mother or her mother’s boyfriends had called her at some point or another.

Sometimes it made her pushy. Sometimes it got her what she wanted. 

Sometimes it didn’t, and she found herself pushing herself, mile after mile, trying to clear her head two days after telling Newton.

Telling. Newton. 

That was why being a go-getter was her worst quality. Maybe if she wasn’t so driven, she could have held off longer. Could have waited. Could have found some grand way to confess her feelings. Maybe she could have shoved them down.

But she couldn’t. She was Izzie. A go-getter. She’d held herself back for too long, anyway. Summer in Florida had been brutal, and not for the heat. She’d missed Newton. She’d left after Slurpee night even more confused than before. Aware of a palpable connection but for once not wanting to push something she might not be ready for (might not be ready for Newton to not be ready for.) She’d known it wasn’t her place to break up Casey and Evan and so she’d stifled herself, first in Florida and then back in Connecticut. 

She hated it. It wasn’t like her to doubt herself. To go round and round in circles in her mind. 

It was like her to quietly suffer, though. To put on a front that everything was fine, because go-getters didn’t show their weaknesses: that was how they failed.

But she couldn’t help it with Casey. 

She had to stop. Panting, Izzie paused, doubling over and fighting the light meal of two pieces of toast that was trying to come back up on her. It was like her, as a go-getter, to push her limits. Always pushing. Beat a record time she’d just set the week before? She could do it. Hide the tear tracks in her make-up when she let herself cry in the old bathroom near the janitor’s closet, that no one really knew about, with a minute to spare to sprint to class? Easy. Juggle the schedule of three children, an unreliable parent and a revolving door of weird-ass men, and still have time for her own homework? Sure thing. That’s what go-getters did. They pushed. 

Izzie hadn’t meant to push this far, though. She fought back the tears that threatened to spill and, still breathing hard, righted herself and put her hands on her head, fingers interlocked. Coach had always said that the position helped with breathing, but she wasn’t sure how much she believed it. She still felt like she was suffocating. 

But she hadn’t been able to stand it anymore. Seeing Casey with him…kissing him. Laughing with him. Being in love with him. It hurt, each instance like a hot knife sliding into her abdomen, a hot devil hand seizing her heart and squeezing until her lungs gave out. A lump in her throat always just a little too big to swallow around. 

God, it hurt. It hurt so bad. She thought she’d made her interest clear. She thought, maybe, that Casey felt the same way. She hadn’t been the only one in that car on Slurpee night. It took two to hold hands (metaphorically speaking, of course). She hadn’t been the only one leaning in during their forehead promise. There were so many signs that Casey liked her back, and yet…she didn’t want to push. Because the feelings were new for her, too. 

But Izzie was a go-getter. Nerves only lasted so long before desire, drive, overtook it. She _liked_ Casey. She _liked_ Newton, she liked her long stupid legs and her dumbass smile, she liked her sarcasm and her jokes and how her limbs were too long for her torso and her stupid beautiful face and her warm and caring soul. She liked that Newton was faster than her. She liked that Newton pushed her even more than she pushed herself, but never to the point that Izzie felt overwhelmed. Newton pushed her but was also there for her when things went to shit. 

Or well.

She had been. 

“Fuck.” Izzie muttered, then louder, “Fuck!”

She did let a tear out but quickly wiped it away, frustrated. 

This was the kind of thing she would talk to Newton about. The type of thing she wanted to talk to Newton about. But how could she do it, when the problem was…Newton? Or rather. The problem was that Newton had been avoiding her.

And it was all because Izzie was a go-getter. 

Because she couldn’t keep holding the feelings in. Couldn’t keep pretending that seeing Casey with someone else didn’t hurt, didn’t break her heart a little bit each time she saw them talking or being physically affectionate. She was jealous as hell, because she wanted that to be her. She hadn’t really thought about how things would go if Newton rejected her because…well, honestly the thought hadn’t occurred to her. As far as she was concerned, they were friends first, and could be friends through anything. And she was pretty certain she wasn’t alone. That Casey was sort of…not kidding herself, that wasn’t the right phrase: Casey could never. But she was maybe…what? Afraid? 

Hell, Izzie was afraid too, but it felt worse to not say it. 

So she had. 

Not in so many words, but…

Well, her timing could have been better. But go-getters didn’t have a sense of timing. When something was right, she simply said it. She’d been holding herself back for long enough, anyway. She was sick of it. They couldn’t keep sending smoke signals to each other, vague messages in the air hanging between them. She needed something concrete. A postcard. A telegram. 

A fucking. Whistle. Or something. Something solid she could carry with her, be it in hand or memory. 

So maybe telling Casey…or well, reminding her, was perhaps the more apt term, that Izzie liked her – like, really liked her – maybe she should have picked a time other than when she was staying with Casey to break the news. In her shoes, Izzie knew…no, actually, in her shoes, Izzie would have been ecstatic. But Izzie didn’t have a boyfriend, and the one she’d had was kind of a dickhead. And she’d been in like with Casey for more time than she would care to admit. In Newton’s shoes, she would have leaned forward and kissed her. 

And it wasn’t like this was the first time she’d felt something for a girl, either. Looking back, she’d always known she perhaps wasn’t entirely straight. But she’d never thought much of it until Newton. Because what she felt for Newton…was unlike anything she’d ever felt. It was strong. Stronger even than half of the other desires and goals she had. She just…couldn’t let something like that go. 

But she could understand that maybe for Casey the confession was at an…inopportune moment. Casey was the quiet type. She liked to think things through in her head because as much as she leaned into being awkward, she didn’t like to be outrightly so. She liked being quirky but not embarrassing. Izzie found her adorable no matter what, but she got that about Casey. She understood that sometimes Casey needed time. 

Which was also why she didn’t push, at first, after she told Casey how she felt. Because the silence that had followed her “You know why” had been heavy, nearly suffocating. Casey had just stared at her with that look of utter…fear. 

And it was fear. She didn’t know what to say, but that was okay. Izzie hadn’t exactly known where to go from there, either. 

The spell between them had been broken by Casey’s mom calling them down to eat some dessert, and Casey had simply nodded at her door and said, “We should, uh. Not keep Elsa waiting. You know how she is.”

She was wonderful, but Izzie wasn’t going to try to contradict Casey on her mom, because Casey’s feelings towards her were valid. She had cheated on her dad, and that sucked. 

But god, Casey didn’t know how good she had it. At least her mom cared enough to stick around. At least her mom and dad were still trying. At least her mom supported her. Loved her for more than just how useful she was. How much of a go-getter she was. 

Izzie shook her head and checked her heartrate. Down to 90bpm.

…she could keep going. 

Pulling in a breath despite how ragged her throat felt, she started off again, at an easy pace. 

Running usually helped her clear her mind. She shouldn’t push herself too much, she knew that. But she was frustrated, and punishing her body was one of the only ways she knew how to fix it. To make herself so tired that she couldn’t think of anything anymore. And in the dying afternoon sun, after a good practice (if she didn’t think constantly about how Casey had avoided anything to do with her) (she couldn’t forget that part, though)…it hadn’t been a planned run, but she hoped it would work nonetheless. 

The next morning had almost been…worse. Not because Casey had called her sweaty, because Newton had seen her sweaty, hugged her sweaty, celebrated with her after meets where they were more sweat than people, so she knew Casey didn’t really give a shit about sweat. Besides, she didn’t sweat _that_ much, thanks. Rather, things were worse because she could tell nothing had been cleared up. At all. 

She’d tried to talk to Casey after dessert. Elsa had started a conversation and Casey enthusiastically answered her, to the point that Izzie couldn’t get a word in and she almost couldn’t even make eye contact, Casey was so into staring at either her mother or her pie or even Sam. Izzie had just sat there feeling a bit useless. Elsa tried to include her in the conversation, which were the few times that Newton looked at her, however briefly, but Izzie found she wasn’t very talkative. 

Getting ready for bed was just as weird. Casey gave her one of her old shirts and a pair of cut-off sweat shorts but they’d changed in separate rooms, Izzie in the bathroom and Casey in her room. They brushed their teeth at the same time but there was no talking there. No fooling around either, not like usual, when Newton would pretend to spit at her and Izzie would say “Hey!” so loud that she’d accidentally drool out some of her own toothpaste, which made Casey laugh so hard that she did actually have to spit. Once she’d actually almost swallowed her entire mouthful which had Izzie in stitches and actually drooling into the sink in an effort to not get half-liquefied toothpaste all over the floor.

There had been no antics getting into bed, no long talks, just Casey rolling over and muttering a half-hearted “good night”. 

At least she’d actually gotten into the same bed with her, even if that didn’t last.

So no, she wasn’t feeling all that great when she woke up to find the bed empty. She didn’t enjoy the slight rebuffs she got every time she suggested going somewhere with Casey. In the end she’d just let her go, because what else could she do? 

Elsa had offered her, again, eggs in the hole, and Izzie just accepted because she couldn’t run on an empty stomach, even if all she wanted to do was lace up her shoes and walk out that damn door, take off at a punishing pace and just settle her nerves. 

“She’ll come around,” Elsa had said sympathetically when she’d sat down to join Izzie for breakfast. Izzie could only give her a half-hearted smile. Elsa had caught them in the middle of a near-kiss, after all. She likely knew Izzie’s feelings even better than Newton did, and even if Elsa didn’t, it was nice to know that Casey’s mom at least had Izzie’s back, too. 

“Yeah well. Hope so.” Izzie’d heaved a sigh before grabbing her fork and knife and starting to eat. 

Her run that morning had been lonely, as had the rest of the day. 

Newton completely avoided her. 

Izzie slowed her pace again, her calves burning and her heart thudding loudly in her chest. She wasn’t sure what was hurting more, but she resolved herself to just walk for a bit. Breathe. 

Newton completely avoided her that entire day at school. No meeting at their lockers. She gave her a wide berth where they usually met at the second floor water fountain between third and fourth block. She was in and out of the locker room so fast that Quinn had actually asked Izzie if Casey was coming to practice. Casey avoided Izzie like the plague and Izzie had been a cross between unsure and annoyed the whole day. 

Because…well, she understood that maybe Casey needed some time to process. That was a thing for women who liked women, she’d read it online when she’d started to realize that maybe she had a major thing for her best friend. Processing was apparently a huge part of the…well, process. And she was okay with that. 

She just wished it wasn’t so lonely. She’d had to process a lot of her crush on her own too, after all. She knew it sucked. She wished she could help Casey. Wished she could go up and just ask “Okay, so what are you feeling here?” and work through it with her, like she would if they were just normal friends, but she didn’t want to push. So she pushed down her own pride, her own feelings (something she never did), to let Newton process or whatever. To let Newton just stew in her thoughts as though Izzie hadn’t been doing the same thing for _months_. 

She was a little resentful, too, but mostly because Casey could hide from it. Casey could hide from her feelings for Izzie, if she had any, because she had Evan and she loved him and blah blah blah. Evan was probably great but Izzie couldn’t bring herself to like him. It just wasn’t in her nature to like someone who had what she wanted. 

So yeah, she’d been annoyed, but mostly she just felt sad. She missed Casey. Missed her friend. She didn’t like doubting their friendship, doubting them, because Casey was giving her the silent treatment. If it were anything else…some other kind of random drama, she would have already tracked Newton down and forced her to talk about what was on her mind. And excepting Newton telling her that she wasn’t sure yet and just needed time, which she would have happily given if it had been communicated properly, she would have gotten to the bottom of the problem right then and there.

But she held back. She let Newton avoid her to the point that she didn’t even know Newton was home, with Evan, until it was too late. She walked in on them kissing and all she wanted to do was barf.

Okay, that was harsh. But it was a punch in the gut, to see the girl she’d just told not twenty-four hours before, that she liked, making out with her boyfriend. It certainly didn’t help being told by said boyfriend that they were going to make out so if she could gtfo, that’d be great. 

She got the message, loud and fucking clear. 

She’d almost gone for a run but had indignantly forced herself to walk around the block and not much else that night, because she told Sam she’d watch a movie with him as she was heading to the door. 

At least she’d been more prepared for the next day when Newton avoided her. In a lot of ways, she’d started the day off in a better mood than she had the day before. Because she knew Newton was avoiding her but maybe…maybe if she just pretended nothing was amiss, maybe if she just showed Newton that she could be okay with distance, as long as Newton knew she could still talk to her…maybe it would be okay. 

And so she’d been prepared for seeing Newton constantly ducking her in the halls. In some ways she tried to make a game of it: 10 points if she could see Newton’s panicked expression before she bolted. 5 more points if Newton bolted so fast that her bag needed a second to catch up, like she was some kind of comical kids cartoon. 3 points if she managed to interrupt Newton mid-conversation and watch Casey squirm while she tried to come up with a polite excuse to run away. Bonus points if her cheeks turned red. 

By last block, Izzie was actually having a lot of fun. She knew Casey’s schedule and so by the end of the day had started to purposefully put herself in places where she knew Casey would be, just to see how many points she could get in The-Girl-I-Like-Is-Avoiding-Me bingo. She easily racked up more than a hundred points before practice had even started. 

But practice had made things worse, and scattered the good will that Izzie had built up inside of herself the whole day. 

“Hey not right now okay, I’m tryin’a…focus.”

“Love our chats.”

The one thing she could thank Casey’s silence for was some solid numbers. She’d always liked the age-old adage of “Run angry”, because anger fueled muscles to the extent that preworkouts only wished they could. She wouldn’t say she was angry, but the loss of the amusement she’d used to insulate herself all day helped sharpen her focus. 

Because she was a go-getter, and if the thing she was trying to get was being elusive, she could try and get something else. It was the only thing she could do.

Coach ended up sending Newton home early and Izzie had sent her a text, just to make sure she was okay. She knew what was wrong but she knew Newton wouldn’t be happy about being sent home (even if she desperately needed it). 

That got ignored. So did Izzie’s second text. And her third. Her fourth. And her fifth! At that point she’d called, and nothing. She’d gone back to Casey’s to find her room empty, her house vacant of her presence. Doug mentioned something about Casey going to Don’s, which was just fucking great, really. The straw that really broke the camel’s back, though, was Elsa reporting, a few hours later, that apparently Casey had decided to go back to Clayton. Izzie hadn’t even heard her come home and borrow her dad’s truck. And of course she hadn’t bothered to come up and check, or to text, or…anything. 

Izzie’d seen red and she’d immediately gone for a run. The toast was a last-minute thought, even in her anger-addled brain, her runner’s training kicked in: not a good idea to run on an empty stomach. Especially distance. Especially if she didn’t know where she was going. 

At least…she hadn’t, when she’d started. The goal had just been to get out. 

Realization dawned as she continued walking, sucking in breaths to calm her heart, which was beating erratically in her ribcage. 

She couldn’t take it anymore. She couldn’t take Casey avoiding her. She couldn’t take the silence, the awkwardness, the emptiness. She couldn’t fucking take it anymore. God, she’d known this girl for barely over a year and she’d fallen so fucking hard, so fucking fast. 

Izzie felt the hot sting of tears in her eyes. She squeezed her eyelids shut, letting them fall freely now. It all hurt so much and yet, the only thing she could think of…was Casey. Casey with her stupid bob and her beautiful laugh and her soft, deep voice. 

An ache yanked open a pit in her stomach that could rival the Grand Canyon, and Izzie let a few more tears fall as she gasped and threw her arms over her head, elbows bent and forearms resting right above her forehead. God it hurt and it was so much and fuck. 

Fuck. Fuck!

She yanked her phone out of the jacket pocket she’d shoved it in, quickly sending off a text.

_She still there?_

She didn’t have to wait long for Elsa to answer, and with a final curse, Izzie changed course, turning on the balls of her feet and starting, again at a jog, toward an answer. A conversation. Her own damn heart. She knew where Newton was and Izzie wasn’t far, and she wasn’t going to let this keep happening. 

Because Izzie was a go-getter. Izzie didn’t run away from things. She ran toward them. Consequences be damned. It was in her blood. It was who she was.

And she wasn’t going to change now. 

\---

**Author's Note:**

> That's that! Hope you enjoyed it, Izzie is such a fascinating character because we just don't know too much about her, but she seems the type to confront her problems head-on, I think, which to me is a pretty admirable quality, being someone incapable of doing that (but trying to work on it!) 
> 
> Anyway, drop a line or a kudo if you liked it, thanks for reading! :)


End file.
